A Comparative Study of the Foundations and Methods of Hadith Studies of James Robson and G.H.A. Juynboll

The large volume of Orientalist' hadith studies works and their effect on the world, necessitates their assessment and analysis. The study of James Robson's and G.H.A. Juynboll's Hadīth researches, with a time interval about half a century, with a descriptive and analytical approach, reveals the development of Hadīth studies and the varied use of traditions' dating methods. The lack of validity and authenticity of the traditions, the critical attitude to the Rijāl works and its inadequacy in critique of the hadith, the reversed growth of the Isnad, the attitude to the hadiths as an developing discourse, their common foundations, and the primacy of the Isnad on the text and the basis of silence in evaluating the hadith are the most important foundations of Juynboll. Robson's research is descriptive and like misgiving reports, while Juynboll uses a causal method and an approach of criticism and analysis, and his research is “in-text analysis”, and word processing and localization of hadith terms are his other features.